A great place to start the day if you are in South London is Federation Coffee in Brixton Village. The food is great and so is the coffee. This is a very chilled place where you can get both and indoor and outdoor experience (even though the whole place is under the Village roof).

Great food and atmosphere in Brixton. Try their Vegan Viking pizza: Cashew cheese, pistachio pesto, red chillies, rocket and mint or their Cauliflower cheese arancini. And who doesn't like a bottomless brunch in the weekends?

The best live jazz band I ever heard was at a packed out night in Brilliant Corners. I was happy to be squashed.

This painted of the shopping centre by my brother, Leo Verhoeven, shows a rather idyllic vision of the shopping centre we both share. Its pretty rough, full of budget shops and funny cafes and framed by a shanty town style open air market. I have a real soft spot for it as the classic under dog, thats so often slated and condemned but lives on.

I'm waiting for a vegetarian-friendly event to get the full dining experience, but in the meantime there's wine!